Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

I know Tabitha from Twitter and I hope she presses charges, after this MORON is identified.

The Communications Workers of America should apologize and sanction this member.

According to the latest Gallup Poll.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have no clear favorite for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee at this point, with Mike Huckabee (18%), Mitt Romney (16%), and Sarah Palin (16%) in a statistical tie for the lead. They are the only candidates in the crowded field of potential candidates who register double-digit support. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and former Utah Gov. and current Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman were included for the first time and received 4% and 1%, respectively.

Here is the list:

National polls mean little at this point in time. Also, it is doubtful that Mike Huckabee will run since he has given every indication that he will not.

Also, it is apparent that Sarah Palin continues to position herself for a run with Facebook postings on foreign policy and a trip to India next month to deliver a speech about her vision for America. Unfortunately for Sarah is that her polling against President Obama head to head is the worst in the field – at least so far.

Here is a breakdown by GOP subgroup:

So, what does all of this mean?

There is NO front-runner for the GOP nomination.

I continue to maintain that should Sarah Palin decide to run, she will more than likely win the nomination. But Sarah will likely lose to President Obama in an overwhelming fashion in the Electoral College because of her unfavorables with independent voters. I, also, maintain that she will ultimately pass on the race when confronted with polls that show her a big loser – why damage her brand and political future.

Of course, if the economy does not improve and world events change, all bets are off and anyone may be able to beat the incumbent President, including Sarah Palin.

These are my links for February 23rd from 11:43 to 11:47:

• Obama administration won’t defend Defense of Marriage Act – The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will no longer defend the constitutionality of the federal government's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages, a rare legal reversal and the latest in a series of political victories for gay rights activists.

  The Justice Department had appealed the decision of a federal judge in Massachusetts who struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in July, saying it was obligated to defend federal statutes. The 1996 law defines marriage from the federal perspective as between a man and a woman, which means same-sex married couples are denied access to marriage-based federal benefits.

  In an extraordinary change, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Wednesday that he and President Obama had determined – after an extensive review – that the law's key section is unconstitutional. "Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute" in court, Holder said in a statement.

  Administration officials said the review was triggered by a court-imposed filing deadline in two new legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, filed in federal courts in New York and Connecticut.

  The change in position came after intense lobbying of Justice Department and White House officials by gay rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, according to activists familiar with the White House's thinking. "There has been an all-out effort to get them to do the right thing," said one activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

  Obama's relationship with the gay community, a key part of his political base, has been complicated, and activists had strongly opposed the administration's earlier defense of the federal same-sex marriage law. The president has said in the past that he does not support the right of gay couples to marry, though he said in December that his views are "evolving.

  ++++++

  Obama has now elevated gay marriage into the 2012 Presidential race.

• Indiana Senate leader says right-to-work bill is dead – But Dems Won’t Return to Indiana Anyway – Republicans have killed a controversial labor bill that has sparked a Democrat work-stoppage and large union protests at the Statehouse.

  But Democrats say that isn’t enough to get them back to the Statehouse.

  The Indiana House resumed at 2 p.m. today although most Democrats were gone and the galleries — which earlier were full of protesters who were applauding and chanting — had been cleared by Republican Speaker Brian Bosma.

  Shortly before that, House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer spoke to reporters from Urbana, Ill., where most House Democrats are holed up in a Comfort Suites hotels.

  Bauer said the House Democrats realize Republicans won’t let them have their hope: taking 11 labor and education bills taken off the table for consideration this session. But they want more than just the one, the “right to work” measure, that Republicans today agreed to send to a study committee.

  ++++++

  Read it all

  The Dems won't be returning because there are now other issues.

  Wow – negotiations of legislation in absentia – a new one for American politics

These are my links for February 23rd from 10:45 to 10:47:

• Democrat Rep. Michael Capuano urges unions to ‘get a little bloody when necessary’ – Sometimes it's necessary to get out on the streets and "get a little bloody," a Massachusetts Democrat said Tuesday in reference to labor battles in Wisconsin.

  Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) fired up a group of union members in Boston with a speech urging them to work down in the trenches to fend off limits to workers' rights like those proposed in Wisconsin.

  "I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going," Capuano said, according to the Statehouse News. "Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

  Political observers have been the lookout for potentially incendiary rhetoric in the wake of January's shooting in Tucson, Ariz., where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) survived an assassination attempt, six were killed, and 12 others were injured.

  ++++++

  How's that civility working out for you?

• WH: Obama still ‘grappling’ with gay marriage – The White House says President Barack Obama is "grappling" with his personal views on gay marriage even as he's ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of a law that bans it.

  The Justice Department announced Wednesday that, at Obama's direction, it would not defend the Defense of Marriage Act in a court case where it's being challenged.

  Spokesman Jay Carney said Obama has always opposed the Defense of Marriage Act as "unnecessary and unfair." But Carney said there's no change to how Obama views gay marriage itself.

  Obama said in January that he is still wrestling with whether gay couples should have the right to marry. He said his feelings on the issue continue to evolve but he still believes in allowing strong civil unions.

  +++++++

  Looks like a wedge issue for the 2012 Presidential race

According to latest PPP Presidential Poll:

Head to Head:

• Obama – 46% Vs. Huckabee – 47% (49% Vs. 45%)
• Obama – 47% Vs. Romney – 44% (same)
• Obama – 48% Vs. Gingrich – 44% (50% Vs. 43%)
• Obama – 51% Vs. Palin – 41% (50% Vs. 41%)

Favorable Vs. Unfavorable:

• Obama – 47% Vs. 48% (49% Vs. 47%, month ago)
• Huckabee – 43% Vs. 34%
• Romney – 37% Vs. 39%
• Gingrich – 30% Vs. 48%
• Palin 37% Vs. 57%

Not a good poll for President Obama who needs a win in North Carolina as it is one of the key battleground states for the 2012 Presidential race.

Compared to a month ago Obama’s dropped 5 points against Huckabee, who he led 49-45 last time and 2 points against Gingrich who he led 50-44 last time. His numbers against Romney remain unchanged and he’s actually gained a point on Palin.

The main reason for his diminished standing when matched against Huckabee is that Obama now trails him by 5 points with independents, where a month ago the President actually held an 11 point advantage. That’s consistent with a bit of downward turn in Obama’s numbers with independents nationally, which had seen a spike in January in the wake of the Tucson shooting and the Republicans assuming control of Congress.

The full poll is here (Pdf).

PPP surveyed 650 North Carolina voters from February 16th to 21st. The survey’s margin of error is +/-3.8%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may
introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

I am still wondering what the BFD is here. There is no FLAP and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker sounds like how a public official should.

Here is part two:

Well, it is obvious that the phone call is NOT from David Koch, the billionaire businessman. And, it is also obvious that Governor Walker does NOT talk to him very frequently as he does NOT recognize the differences in the impersonator’s voice.

Here is David Koch talking about filtration membranes:

The LEFT can have its fun with this call and the Saul Alinsky type ridicule of Scott Walker can begin.

But, there is nothing there folks.

Here is Governor Walker’s office response:

“The governor takes many calls everyday,” Walker’s spokesman, Cullen Werwie, said in a statement. “Throughout this call the governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. He continued to say that the budget repair bill is about the budget. The phone call shows that the governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having.”

If anything, this shows Governor Walker as a principled well-balanced POL.

By the way, why did Walker take the call in the first place? Well, most POLS do know who their major political donors are and do grant them a degree of access.

Lipton leaves that claim hanging, and never tells his readers how much the Koch PAC contributed to Walker’s campaign. In fact, the total was $43,000. That was out of more than $11 million that Walker raised, and $37.4 million that was spent, altogether, on the 2010 race for Governor of Wisconsin. Which means that people associated with Koch Industries contributed a whopping one-tenth of one percent of what was spent on last year’s election.

Here we have just more desperate, Saul Alinsky, Big Labor type tactics to defame Governor Walker – didn’t work though.

BFD.

These are my links for February 22nd through February 23rd:

• The Koch Brothers and Wisconsin – But, What About Common Cause? – The New York Times has an article that runs under the headline "Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute." It includes this:

  To Bob Edgar, a former House Democrat who is now president of Common Cause, a liberal group that has been critical of what it sees as the rising influence of corporate interests in American politics, the Koch brothers are using their money to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes.

  "This is a dangerous moment in America history," Mr. Edgar said. "It is not that these folks don't have a right to participate in politics. But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands."

  This is really something. Who does the New York Times think funds Common Cause? Non-wealthy, non-corporate interests? Talk about a facade of grass-roots support. Common Cause's 2008 annual report — the most recent one posted on the Common Cause Web site, which is pretty pathetic for a group supposedly in favor of transparency — lists the Ford Foundation, the GE Foundation,and the Carnegie Corporation of New York as among its backers.

  The 2008 Common Cause annual report lists five donors in the top giving bracket of between $100,000 and $999,000. They include:

  Donna A. Curling, whose husband's company, ChoicePoint, was acquired in 2008 for $4.1 billion.

  Mr. and Mrs. John C. Haas, whose family controls charitable and income-producing trusts (the Philadelphia chemical company Rohm & Haas was acquired by Dow Chemical) reportedly worth worth a total of more than $4 billion.

  Markos Kounalakis, whose wife, a real estate developer, has enough money to endow a professorship at Stanford.

  Chang K. Park, whose company supplies 80% of the remote controls for Time Warner Cable.

  What Common Cause is is a bunch of millionaires and billionaires trying to prevent other millionaires and billionaires from participating in the political process the same way they do. In other words, they are hypocrites. The Times could write a story headlined Billionaires' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute and have the article be about not the Koch brothers but about the funders of Common Cause. But the left-wing interest groups rarely get that kind of treatment in the Times, where these left-wing interest groups are more commonly quoted approvingly as expert sources rather than scrutinized skeptically or suspiciously as targets.

  +++++++

  And, then there is George Soros and his front organizations supporting Obama

• The Mitch Daniels Defense: It’s for the Children – Gov. Mitch Daniels is already under fire for his decision to refuse to push for the passage of the right-to-work laws in Indiana. But supporters are pointing to two factors that they feel make Daniels’s action understandable: his 2005 executive order that banned collective bargaining for state workers and his determination to make education reform a priority in 2011.

  In other words, comparisons to Wisconsin are unfair: right-to-work laws aren’t the same as collective bargaining powers. In addition, Daniels has publicly declared his support for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts.

  “His reluctance on the right-to-work [law] right now is rooted in his desire to see this education [reform] work,” says Ryan Streeter, editor of ConservativeHome.com and a former colleague of Daniels in the White House. Streeter argues that Daniels has been planning for a long time to make this year about education reform – and that a huge battle over right-to-work laws could jeopardize that.

  “He’s gearing up for a fight. This is not going to be an easy thing. He’s received a lot of criticism just in the local media for his plans,” says Streeter, talking about how Daniels wants to introduce vouchers and expand charter schools.

  Daniels also wants more teacher accountability. “Teachers should have tenure, but they should earn it by proving their ability to help kids learn. Our best teachers should be paid more, much more, and ineffective teachers should be helped to improve or asked to move,” Daniels argued in his State of the State speech last month.

  “In general, he wants to be able to rewrite the contracts so that people can be fired and moved along on merit,” Streeter remarks. “And that in itself is just a huge deal. He’s already part of the way down a path with the teachers and the unions in these discussions and so I think this whole right-to-work event right now just makes that whole other process all the more difficult.”

  +++++++

  If Mitch Daniels wants to run for President, he really needs a quick response social media team that will respond to minor misinterpretations and/or gaffes.

  This response changes some impressions of mine but color me still skeptical.

• Elton Gallegly’s new clout helps him battle illegal immigration – Rep. Elton Gallegly slides into a black leather chair, picks up the chairman's gavel and raps it lightly to call the meeting to order.

  Flat-screen TVs mounted to the walls of the wood-paneled chamber flicker to life with the Republican congressman's image as he gives his opening remarks at a hearing on illegal immigration and its effect on the American work force.

  "Good morning," Gallegly begins. "I have long said that the way to solve the problem of illegal immigration is fairly simple.

  "First, we must enforce our laws and secure the border. Second, we must remove the magnets that encourage illegal immigration. And finally, we must remove the benefits that make it easier for them to stay."

  Gallegly has given this speech, or some variation of it, hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of times. He has been a consistent and outspoken voice against illegal immigration since he gave up his job as mayor of Simi Valley and headed east for a career in the U.S. House nearly a quarter-century ago.

  ++++++++

  Read it all

• Wisconsin Licensing Dept. Looking Into Doctors’ Notes – Wisconsin officials are investigating complaints about doctors who handed out medical excuses for pro-labor protesters at the Capitol.
  Dave Ross, of the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, said the agency is looking into accusations that a number of local doctors provided the notes for protesters who missed work during the week. Ross said the department will review complaints with the independent Medical Examining Board as soon as possible.
  Tuesday's statement came a day after University of Wisconsin Health, which employed some of the physicians involved, said it was also looking into the matter.
  Physician Lou Sanner was one of the doctors who provided notes. He told The Associated Press on Saturday that doctors wrote the notes for what they saw as legitimate health issues arising from stress.

  +++++++++

  Let the wrist slapping commence